Windows Update borks PowerShell – Microsoft won't fix it for a week You'd be forgiven for thinking Microsoft is actively trying to stop people using Windows 10 Anniversary Edition. A patch this week broke one of the key features of the OS: PowerShell. KB 3176934, released on Tuesday as an automatic update, addresses a good number of bugs and other oddities in the operating system, including …
> MS users are pretty much permanently on the lookout for alternatives...
If this is true it's a new thing. I was always baffled by the fact that Windows users would not even remotely consider alternatives, regardless of the sometimes horrible things a have witnessed happening to them.
Just one: new expensive laptop "bricked" (according to user) with an update, with two month of purchase. Solution: buy another laptop, give bricked one to relative who uses that weird "Linux" stuff.
OK, one more: new version does not have driver for some (again, quite expensive) piece of periphery. Solution: bin it and buy one with recent driver.
Icon how I feel after just typing this.
Speaking from experience, more pain than money. Bring back Vista, all is forgiven! Seriously, I've been advising and helping my clients to avoid both Windows 8 and 10 since they came out, but it's getting harder. So is fixing Windows when it breaks.
Incidentally the thing that puts most of my clients off is not the telemetry or updates, but the idea/reality of learning a new UI/modus operandi. The fact that 8/10 are such badly designed retrograde UIs, just makes "stick with what you know" an easier sell.
It's a pity a bunch of sensible developers can't fork Windows just before Windows 8. Call it, I don't know, '7 Double Glazed' - "same functionality as before, just more efficient" :)
Mine's still the one with a roll of Win 7 CoAs in the pocket.
"Someone above posted that it would be a good time to open a Windows repair shop. In brief ; I would rather gnaw my arm off rather than try to fix Windows 10."
Rather than repair, collect. Just emulate the plague scene from Monty Python and The Holy Grail:
Pull a cart through the suburbs labeled WINDOWS 10, ringing a bell, and chanting, "Bring out your dead.", Profit!
@Anon. What a tag line:
"These days it looks like marketing are actually doing the coding and testing as well'
Windows has always been a ball of tangled wool with potential gaping holes, but what's Windows 10 going to be like in 12 months, given the rapid release cycle and rapid withdraw cycle.
Anyone using Windows 10 hoping this will get better is like an alcoholic in denial.
For Enterpise, a potential 4 versions aready in use/testing, Windows 10_1507, Windows 10_1511, Windows 10 1511_2, Windows 10_1607, (+Insider builds for Redstone 2), what happened to the 'one version' of Windows 10 Mantra?
This all points towards a can of worms for testing purposes. It won't be long before the only sensible place to run 'Windows 10' (multiple versions) is under VMware on a LTS Linux install.
Its like raspberry ripple ice cream, where you can vagely see 'Windows 10' in the ripple, the more you stir it, the less visible the wording gets, with a taste that is less than creamy, to a point you wonder what flavour your eating.
Microsoft, get drastic, this needs serious reorgansation, pull the head of Marketing for a start - useless, beyond belief.
You need core code / latest bell and whistles, like Red Hat / Fedora release cycles. Stop combining the two, like raspberry ripple, admit you can't make an updatable on the fly, 'rolling release' combo of these two type of products (before its too late).
Microsoft, get drastic, this needs serious reorgansation, pull the head of Marketing for a start - useless, beyond belief.
You need core code / latest bell and whistles, like Red Hat / Fedora release cycles. Stop combining the two, like raspberry ripple, admit you can't make an updatable on the fly, 'rolling release' combo of these two type of products (before its too late).
I wouldn't bother with recommending any changes to unearth some improvement at Microsoft. As far as I can tell, that ship has sailed about a decade ago. Nowadays it's merely hanging on for the end, occasionally interrupted by some deckchair rearranging.
"And Redmond wonders why people are leaving its products for open-source alternatives"
yep because opensource never has any issues, what with a myriad of different flavours and versions and about a million updates released every month, ermmm opppsss wait what I meant to say was, errmmmm feck it.
For the peeps installing Windows 7, do you know about this? Speeds up the process :D
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/kb/3125574
This rollup package includes most updates that were released after the release of SP1 for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2, through April 2016.
As Paul Daniels (magician) might have once said:
"Its helps a little, not a lot'.
You need to be a bloody magician, to have the patience and the ability to install all of Windows 7's Post SP1 updates successfully. MS have well and truely borked Windows 7SP1 for the home/small biz user.
You might just do it from a fresh install of Windows SP1 by updating Windows Update first, you won't if you use system restore image of the system/hard drive, it just won't update, well not in any timeframe that someone with a job and children to feed, can work to.
You need to know the special secret sauce...
From very recent experience I can tell you If you have w7 SP1 and want to update you need to manually apply the following two patches first...
KB3050265
KB3102810
The rest of the 280 odd patches will download normally after applying these two.
Good luck!
"you need to manually apply the following two patches first...
KB3050265
KB3102810
The rest of the 280 odd patches will download normally"
Much appreciated. I'll be trying this on a couple of systems (maybe more) in the next week or so, I may even report back if all goes well.
Does "download normally" mean wait maybe 24 hours, during which wait the processor and the network connection will be idle the vast majority of the time?
There are various half-answers of varying complexity scattered around the Interweb. If this is all it takes, then you win a beer or two.
I found this out a couple of weeks ago after leaving a new install searching for updates for 4 hours. It took me a couple more hours to find a solution because frankly the internet in general and search engines in particular are virtually completely broken these days. Any search returns many commercial results but almost no informed knowledge. Don't you just love default AND searches <sigh>
Anyway after installing these it identified the required updates in around 10 minutes and then took around 1-2 hours to download them.
Good luck!
The amount of entertainment is amazing.
I proposed that we rename Windows 10 to Windows Schrodinger edition as we can't predict until we come to use something whether it will work today or not. *
Secondly, since things are so damn complicated, trying to explain bits of how it works to people results in about the same level of confusion as explaining the basics of quantum physics.
On the positive side though, if there are an infinite number of parallel universes, in one of them, presumably Microsoft are doing OK and are not acting like complete idiots.
* Figure of speech,being a non-Windows user, except when its pushed by a client.
And the torrent of bad updates continues. Automatic updates though are totally a good thing people... trust us... said Microsoft whilst simultaneously firing the quality assurance team.
Don't worry though, when the fix comes it will have taken ages to ensure the patch meets the highest standards...
"MS users are pretty much permanently on the lookout for alternatives to either fix things MS has borked, return functionality MS has removed in the name of "improvement" (especially in matters UI) or add functionality that MS cannot be bothered with"
I had no idea you'd been spying on my typical day. Although as I am still (and staying!) on Win 8, I guess you could actually spy on me with a webcam since it won't be randomly broken.
When Paul Thurrott looked dejected and thoroughly pissed off this week, having reinstalled Windows Aniversary Update umpteen times, trying to solving the freezing Logitech C920 issue at 1080p in Skype, you know things are looking bad for Microsoft.
As Microsoft reporters go, he's like a stick of rock with Microsoft through it, in terms of his loyalty to MS. (Same with Mary Jo Foley).
He's in effect the equivalent of the Alcoholic in Denial, regards Microsoft's competence. He did the same with Windows Phone, tried to loyally "big it up", right to the end, until everyone else could see its non-existent future, except him.
Mary Jo Foley is still talking about the vapourware 7'' 'Surface Phone', as though it will save MS's mobile division (but in the same breath, says she won't be ditching new Android phone)
Given the flakiness (dying on its last legs) of Windows 10 Mobile, it will probably do more harm to the Surface Pro range of laptops, than help anything in the MS mobile division. (which given the Battery issues on the Surface Pro 3, and the firmware issues on the Surfacebook-hot bag syndrome), best not to tie anymore bad news to the Surface range.
It was just starting to recover, only to be tripped up again by the battery issue. It just highlights the inherent problem of sealed battery devices, including iPads - limited 'sealed' lifespan.
I'm a Unix guy, but in fairness to Powershell - It's way more than just a shell. I needed to test SSH connectivity from a locked-down Windows server to some Linux/Unix boxes, and Powershell has a utility to do that (proving to me that some connections were blocked by a firewall).
Who knows what else it can do (when it's working)?
I don't even read the articles about Microsoft self injuries anymore. There are so many they got boring. But reading the comments is pure entertainment, you guys are the best!
Thank you MS for providing the material. Now, go shoot yourself!!
Where have you all been, this type of issue with WinX was discussed to death and everyone said they wouldn't be stupid enough to install it.
Has there been a sudden influx of noobies looking for sympathy or because they thought they knew best?
None of you can say you were not warned and if you chose to ignore it then learn the lesson, don't come on here bitching "if only someone told me not to install this piece of S**t".
Or perhaps IT professionals, despite being personally sure of the likely quality and problems associated with Wx are still impelled to install it at least once to ensure their impression is accurate or even more likely they may have to support it or develop to it?
I have never wanted to use windows, but my employers always said I had to.
I have Win10 on a laptop I got last year and it has been a horrible nightmare... The only thing I have use for is the better audio and video...
Everything else sucks... The UI is an acid trip designed by a drunk Photoshopper... I just got the Anniv update and it's even worse... All the Windows look like popups.... Having no edges makes it hard to over lap windows... Ths icons are 3rd grade pencil drawings... Especially in the SysTray...
Modern apps totally blow chunks.. I tried WinZip and IHeartRadio... Ewwww... First they get rid of Silverlight rather than trying to remove the NPAPI parts and KEPT FLASH... They they take WPF and screw it up with UWP while there is no difference between a laptop and desktop and buying Nokia destroyed the phone OS...
So I'm stuck with a Phone UI on 23" LCDs...
Windows 10 SUCKS...
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
